


Facades are One Thing but You're Desperate and so is He

by victoriousscarf



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Incest, Multi, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You just regret there are no dragons left for a gentleman to slay,” Loki said and that, apparently was that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facades are One Thing but You're Desperate and so is He

**Author's Note:**

> So this was something that for a while I figured was never gonna see the light of day. I started working on it in... 2013? So three years later here I am finally dusting the thing off and polishing it and posting it. 
> 
> Inspired by a fanart that I totally lost the link to ages ago. I will try to hunt it down when I have better internets and edit this note.
> 
> Edit: [Fanart finally found ](http://victoriousscarf.tumblr.com/post/68652830326/13-castles-my-fan-art-thor-au-thor-loki-i)

The house was old. It sprawled over its land in the middle of the city, façade light and full of enlightenment rationality and perfect symmetry made out of white marble.

Yet.

The inside was decaying from the center out to the windows, full of twisting hallways and small room, nooks that had been designed and decorated a century or more ago, rooms tumbling over each other with each new generation and addition, full of trinkets from some great uncle, twice removed who traveled the world and brought back an exotic bride before that was popular. Each generation made their mark and died in their turn, leaving more of a labyrinth behind.

Once they had played hide and seek, discovering old and musty rooms together and apart, laughing in the silence.

Now they just mostly avoided each other.

-0-

“Why do you read so much?” Thor asked, finding Loki in the library and ignoring the twist in his stomach, underneath his rib cage as Loki looked up, long fingers curled around the book.

“Do you have something better to do with your time?” he asked, tone acid and the curl changed but did not go away.

“At least you used to tell me stories,” Thor said, throwing himself into a chair opposite his brother and Loki hissed out a breath, looking down. “But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

Loki just shook his head, eyes not darting up and Thor regretted it. “We are still young.”

“Sometimes it does not feel like we are,” Thor said and Loki’s eyes lifted, watching him from beneath his brows and over the top of the book and Thor swallowed hard.

“You are too young, and too stupid, to already be so jaded,” Loki said as if that was a decision he had come to and looked down again. “You are simply bored with this existence.”

“That could make someone jaded,” Thor said, scowling and Loki let out a quiet laugh and Thor wanted to reach his hands out, drag them over Loki’s skin and his fingers ached with that _want_ and he wondered when it had happened, between one breath and the other, weeks, months, years ago when Loki changed from just being there to being someone Thor wanted to touch and kiss and chain to his overlarge bed and never let leave.

“You just regret there are no dragons left for a gentleman to slay,” Loki said and that, apparently was that.

-0-

Thor had friends; Loki didn’t.

Rather, Thor realized one day, Loki had rivals he would almost call companions. He had been passing on the street when he saw Loki and Amora sitting to tea, eyes sharp over their cucumber sandwiches and cups and Thor almost tripped there in the street. Loki had always fumed and glared when Amora came over, her eyes large and adoring as she watched Thor. Their obvious hatred made Thor almost as uncomfortable as Amora’s obvious attentions. Apparently though, they had a strange truce so long as Thor was not in the room.

Thor never wanted to know what they talked about.

His friends were different and he could truly call them friends even if they had no idea what to do with their lives. Sif wore her hair long, having shifted from golden as children to deep brown, and pinned up underneath her hat. There had never been a year when she did not complain about the skirts. Volstagg was older but much loved by them all, though his greatest joy was in food rather than politics like it should have been. Hogun was sharp and pointed and Thor knew he saw more than anyone wished, which is why he hurried him away so quickly from Loki when they met. Fandral’s grin was easy and they all knew his stories were false.

“What would you do with your life?” Fandral asked one night and Thor shrugged, laying back on the couch and thinking about the glint in Loki’s eye when he said he was going out that night. There had been no reason to tell Loki except to watch jealousy flare.

“What do you mean?” Thor asked, looking at the ceiling. “What could I want to do? Our lives are already planned, aren’t they?”

“Don’t be so dire,” Sif scolded and Thor just kept looking at the ceiling, glass of wine cradled on his chest and focusing more on the sound of the fire crackling than what they were saying.

-0-

There were girls and women, Odin watching with a glittering eye to see who Thor would take a shine to, Frigga’s face as mask and her back straight at all the galas and balls and parties. Thor and Loki were both courteous, and knew how to dance but somehow Thor realized that across the room their eyes always came back to each other, not their partners and that thought made Thor’s chest tighten.

But when he finally met someone, it wasn’t at any high society function, it was because he had gotten lost afterwards one night and stumbled and almost passed out drunk. She had taken him in, given him water to bath in, and talked a mile a minute about things Thor had no comprehension over while he toweled his hair.

Jane Foster was the first person to catch his eye outside of black hair and a dark smirk.

-0-

“You should not smoke,” Loki said, fingers curled around the curtain he had pulled back. The nook had no actual door, simply a heavy red curtain to separate it from the hallway. It was thin and narrow, with only a window to recommend it and one red divan.

“It’s quite fashionable,” Thor said, looking up from where he was sprawled back on a divan, blowing smoke into the room.

“No, it makes you look like a common solider, or a Russian,” Loki said, shaking his head.

For a moment, Thor only stared at him, blowing out another breath filled with smoke. “Did you want something, brother?” he asked, tilting his head to one side and letting his blond hair fall into his eyes.

“No,” Loki shot back, shaking his head. “I was only looking for a place to read.”

Thor glanced around his small haven. “There is no light here,” he said, a slow smile curling the corners of his mouth at Loki’s obvious lie.

“Well, of course,” Loki protested. “I was passing by when I realized you were here, being inane. That is all.”

When Thor rose, Loki did not run, though his throat jumped and Thor wanted to touch it. “Is that the only reason you are here?” he asked, a low rumble and Loki blinked.

“Do you think so highly of yourself to believe I came looking for you?” Loki returned with a carefully arched brow and Thor laughed before blowing smoke into Loki’s face, making him cough and wave a hand in front of his face. “Thor—” he protested, anger lacing his voice and Thor reached a hand out, running his thumb along the bottom of Loki’s lips.

When Loki stared at him, wide eyed and shocked, with something deeper behind all that, Thor continued the path of his finger, sweeping along Loki’s upper lip before tracing his bottom lip and resting his thumb at the corner of Loki’s mouth.

“Come to the theater with me tonight,” he said and Loki took a step back, hands on the book he held defensively up to his chest.

“The theater?” he demanded and Thor tried not to smile at the fact his voice was strained, high pitched in annoyance.

“Yes, that is what I said.”

“I have already been to the theater this week,” he said, his eyes darting anywhere except Thor's face.

“I am asking you to go with me,” Thor said, pounding his fist against the invisible wall that had grown up between them, and knew it was dangerous.

There were dozens of reasons they avoided each other in this house, why they let the silence build and build and to break that down whispered of reckless.

“Do you think going with you would be enjoyable?” Loki asked, his mouth flat and his eyes glittering.

“Why not?” Thor asked. “Or have I become too common for you?”

“By far you have,” Loki snapped and turned to go, back one brittle line and Thor reached out, snagging the back of his jacket and yanking him back around. Loki's eyes flared to have his clothing and his body treated in such a way but at least Thor had his undivided attention.

“You know you are lying,” he said. “As much as I know you are lying. There is nothing common about either of us.”

“You are trying your hardest to become so,” Loki said, brittle and there was something in the way he tipped his head back, the way he stared at Thor that made the constant ache of his brother turn into something else, something more dangerous.

“Do not forget where we both come from,” Thor said.

“Yes, our so noble line,” Loki said. “Centuries of pretension and power.”

“Do not deny you wish for that power,” Thor rumbled. “With everything you have.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, jutted his chin out. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” Thor mocked. “You would cut off your hand if you thought it gave you an advantage. You desire power like most men desire drink or women.”

“Like yourself,” Loki said and they were standing too close, tilting closer and closer together as they spoke.

“Oh, brother,” Thor said and could not help his own smile. “You do not comprehend what I desire.”

“They are crass and plain and simple,” Loki said, and Thor's hand curled into a fist at his side, his other having found it's way to Loki's waist.

“No,” he murmured and the air between them felt charged, like someone had inserted some of that new electricity between them, or set an open flame there.

Loki's throat kept jumping but he did not lower his eyes from Thor's face and they stood there too long, both refusing to break away first.

“Come to the theater with me,” Thor said again and Loki tore his gaze away, stepping back and within seconds he had smoothed his coat down and was perfectly poised once more. Smoothing his hair back, he met Thor's eyes again.

“Not tonight,” he said, cold.

“Another night,” Thor called after him and knew Loki would not take him up on it.

-0-

Jane believed in science, had countless books she had scrounged the money for about the heavens and medicine and physics and Thor nodded as she talked about it. He knew its use, of course he did but he could not bring himself to overly care either. The carriages rolled down the streets, lights were there in the darkness, and they all remained firmly planted on Earth.

Jane also believed in kindness, that women should have the vote, and that the arts should be appreciated. She was everything Loki and the house where Thor grew up were not.

Thor sometimes wondered if he clung to her just because she was a light and he felt like drowning.

-0-

“You will have to marry some day,” Odin said and there was a weary anger in his voice.

“Of course,” Thor said, not really paying attention.

“All young men may sow their oats as it were,” Odin said. “The nights you spend out late with your friends. But I am starting to think I should ship you to the colonies to shape you up. Make you and officer and see what responsibility does to you.”

Thor laughed, unable to help himself. “You might have to make your mind up there, father, a wife or a military career?”

“If you do not find one than perhaps the other,” Odin said.

“Please,” Thor said. “We both know that is a false threat. You yourself would loose too much face to ship me off. I am your heir after all, destined for politics and greatness.”

“You can find those on the fringes of our empire too,” Odin said but it was a bluff they both knew. “I do mean it. You will have to settle and become responsible. There is a time and place for youthful indiscretions.”

“I am still youthful,” Thor said.

-0-

He waited for several nights before catching Loki leaving the house, falling into step with him.

“What are you doing?” Loki asked, pausing from where he pulled one of his gloves on.

“You are going to the theater,” Thor said, self-evident.

“Yes,” Loki said slowly, eyes burning.

“I did express I wished to go with you.”

“You did,” Loki allowed. “However, I have no intention of allowing this.”

But no matter how he protested, they ended up in the same cab together, rocking across cobbled streets and Loki lead them tight-lipped to a box together, Thor happily sitting beside him.

“You will not like this play,” Loki said.

“Allow me to decide that for myself, brother,” Thor said and Loki turned his stony expression back out across the theater, obviously preparing to ignore Thor. Thor let him, leaning indolently against the edge of the box, glancing around the theater with its gilt edges, the chandelier catching light in its crystals and throwing it back out, and the shifting and murmuring audience below.

Everyone dressed their best because they wanted to be seen, wanted to be known to go to the theater and be out and known.

Thor felt like he stood above the waves of an ocean, looking down at all the glittering creatures below the waves, and he looked back over at Loki, who still ignored him, every line of his body tense.

“Do you not like the theater?” he asked, voice heavy and lazy.

“It is not the theater that bothers me this night,” Loki said.

“My company has not been this burdensome on you before,” Thor remarked and Loki finally looked at him, just as the lights dimmed, and actors came out on the stage in heavy robes. “A morality play?” Thor asked to himself and he could fell Loki stiffen even that much more beside him. He leaned over, so no one could shush him and whispered in Loki's ear. “Brother, really?”

“Hush,” Loki whispered back, his breath brushing Thor's ear and Thor tightened one fist on the edge of the box.

“It does not seem like you.”

“Hush,” Loki repeated and when Thor did not turn his head they found themselves barely inches apart, facing each other in the dark with dozens if not hundreds of people barely feet away from them. Loki's eyes were wide in the dark and Thor could feel his breath against his mouth.

For the first time in a long time, Loki broke first, jerking his head back around and pressing his back against the seat. His hands were white on the program and Thor slowly eased himself back in to his seat as well. If sometimes his fingers brushed against Loki's thighs as they watched the play, well, he was known to fidget and they were sitting awfully close.

-0-

Thor liked kissing Jane, it felt like kissing sunshine. It warmed his hands, his chest, everywhere that always felt cold. She was small and fit into the shape of his hands and sighed and smiled at him. She was beautiful in ways that made sense, that made the world right, and she was not sharp or pointed in the way Loki or even Sif was.

Yet holding her hand and walking down the street, peering into shops and kissing her later did not fill the hole in his chest, did not sooth him entirely.

Like the twisting house he grew up in, there would always be something dark and rotting at the center of his labyrinth and perhaps he would have to learn to live with it.

“Thor,” she said one day, over the top of her book, Thor sprawled lazily across her couch. “I know you will not marry me.”

“Do you?” Thor asked, turning his head.

“Please,” she murmured. “I am a poor girl from a poor family. Oh, educated and smart perhaps. But also scandalous.”

“Perhaps that is what I want,” Thor protested, for if he was ever to bring home a wife, she would have to be like Jane Foster, all rounded edges and sunny smiles and steel spine and not at all proper. He could not imagine marrying one of society's girls with their manners and simpering ways.

After all his father had said simply to bring home _a_ wife.

Jane shook her head however. “As much as I adore you,” she said. “I could not marry you either.”

Thor sat up, staring at her. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, do not be so insulted by that,” she said, shaking her head. “Simply that I would be more than a fish out of water in your world. I do not want it. And you are wonderful,” she rested her palm on his cheek as if to sooth the sting of her words. “You truly are. But I would not marry you. Not for your power, your wealth, your class, or even for how kind you are.”

“I am not kind,” Thor said, because he knew he was not.

“Perhaps you are in ways you just do not know yet,” Jane said.

“I am not,” Thor insisted again. “I do not know what I did to be worth your regard in the first place but surely—”

“Thor,” she murmured and that was apparently that. He walked out feeling dazed and angry and yet like perhaps Jane was right. Perhaps as much as he wished, he would never have been worthy of marrying her.

Not with his rotted core and the thought of Loki's green eyes constantly in his head.

-0-

He found Loki carrying a tray of tea down the stairs.

“And where is this going?” he asked, plucking the tray from Loki's hands.

“Give it back, Thor,” Loki said, his back taking on that frantically straight edge it seemed to whenever Thor was around, like Loki was holding himself upright and together through sheer force of will.

It was, in some ways, flattering.

“Tell me where it is going so I might make your trip easier,” Thor said and Loki narrowed his eyes at him.

“The first parlor,” he said.

“And are you to have tea there by yourself?” Thor asked.

“Presumably yes,” Loki said, acid edging his voice and Thor thought of Jane as she closed the door on him, and of how Loki had stared in the theater and he smiled in the face of Loki's ire. “But you are intent on ruining that now, aren't you?”

“Perhaps,” Thor agreed and entered the parlor draped in green curtains and set the tray down, Loki trailing after his tea and scowling.

“Can I no longer enjoy the peace of my own home without you?” Loki demanded. “You were not this insistent—”

“I have always been,” Thor said, turning and catching Loki by surprise and too close. “If you choose to remember it correctly or not is not my concern.”

Loki sucked in a breath and let it out, his eyes blazing. “Leave me alone, brother.”

“So you may be lost in these halls forever?” Thor asked. “Is that really what you want?”

“I want out of them,” Loki snapped. “And where the power is. When the time comes that I may leave I shall and never come back. I will never have to see you again, or deal with your insistent needs. I have no intention of staying locked in here forever. I will not be a relic of this household and when I am gone you will have no power over me either—”

Thor's fingers landed on Loki's mouth and Loki froze, eyes wide.

This was not the first time Thor had touched his mouth, not the first time Loki had snarled at him but Thor felt a thrill, certain that _this time_ things would not return to the same afterwards. He felt daring and desperate at the same time, Loki's tiny panicked breaths brushing the pads of his fingers.

“I will always have power over you,” Thor said and Loki glared, Thor tracing his lower lip. “And you are the one who gave it to me.”

Loki jerked his head back. “I have never—”

“Don't pretend I am the only one,” Thor said and he reached out, grabbing Loki's waist and pulling him closer. “Do not pretend you do not watch me too. You hide behind acid and rage but I can see through you.”

“You are seeing shadows,” Loki said but his eyes were dark, pupil having covered most of the green and he could not seem to stop his breath from coming in short pants. “I have never—”

“Brother,” Thor murmured and Loki quaked.

His head tipped up at the same time Thor's tilted down and the first kiss was almost not there. Just a touch of open mouths, a shared breath and then Thor pulled back. He raised one hand, tucking a stray hair back behind Loki's ear. “I see no shadows,” he smeared his words across Loki's temple, his fingers tracing Loki's closed eyes.

“You are a fool,” Loki said and this time when Thor bent down Loki bit his lower lip, dragging it into his mouth and Thor's hand at his waist tightened, and there was not a lock on the door, the tea steaming gently beside them.

-0-

Kissing Jane had been wonderful.

Kissing Loki was like taking a fire into his mouth and letting it ravage him from the inside out. He shoved Loki against the wall and Loki growled at him, even as he attempted to climb Thor, clinging to his shoulders and his impossibly long legs scrambling up.

Kissing Loki was like drowning in the ocean and seeing sunlight on the surface of the waves so far off.

“Brother,” Thor murmured into his ear and Loki snarled at him, dragging his head back around with both his hands around Thor's head.

“Stop it,” he said. “Stop calling me—”

“You are my brother,” Thor said, a dark rumble.

“We cannot do this,” Loki said.

“As if you did not always know you were wrong,” Thor said. “As if we are not as rotted and dark as this house.”

Loki's eyelids fluttered. “You were supposed to be a fool.”

“It was only ever you who wished I was one,” Thor said, biting his ear. “Did it make me less of a threat to you? To convince yourself I would never see, I would never know?”

“Yes,” Loki said, head turned so Thor kissed the long line of his throat, hands holding him against the wall still.

“Than it is you who were the fool,” Thor said, and he dug his fingers in, wondering if he would bruise but Loki only tilted his hips closer into his hands, urging him on. “Do you want to be marked, brother?”

“It would be foolish,” Loki said and Thor finally raised one hand, undoing Loki's tie with one hand and dragging the collar of his shirt down, biting the edge of his collarbone. Loki jerked, hid a moan in his own fingers and pressed closer against Thor.

-0-

The house might have ears and eyes everywhere, it was the risk one ran to have servants who were capable of seeing and hearing.

But that did not stop Thor from taking Loki into his room, and stripping him out of the clothing he wore like armor. From kissing a line from his throat down his chest and Loki dug angry fingers into Thor's shoulders.

“I am not fragile,” he hissed. “I am not—”

“I will worship you if I like,” Thor murmured back.

“Blasphemy on top of everything else,” Loki shook his head.

Thor nipped at him again, teeth scrapped against his shin between ribs and he knelt at Loki's feet. When he looked up, Loki looked down at him with dark eyes, his face frozen half between a sneer and shocked awe.

“Thor,” he whispered, and skimmed his fingers along Thor's cheek and down his chin.

“I want to take you apart,” Thor said and Loki shook so Thor took that as permission enough.

-0-

Loki ran long fingered hands down Thor's spine, and Thor should have been exhausted. He had taken Loki's cock into his mouth until Loki bent over his head, muffling curses and falling apart. And then they had curled up in Thor's bed, rutting like animals and half the sheets were pushed off the bed, the other half a mess.

But he turned his head to see Loki's face and did not feel exhausted at all. The touch of Loki's long fingers felt like they were searing him, and so long as Loki was there he did not think he would ever be ready to stop.

“I think,” he rumbled. “You have created a monster of me.”

Loki smiled, and his eyes were hooded and his expression for once was not freezing. “Good,” he said, vicious and Thor shivered. “As you have destroyed me it is only fair that never change.”

“And have I dear brother?” Thor asked, rolling over and Loki settled on his waist, long legs on either side of Thor's hips. “Destroyed you?”

“Yes,” Loki murmured and Thor grinned, dragging him down and that place that never seemed to be anything but cold felt oddly warmed.

-0-

Not too long after there was another ball, and Thor smiled at all the women in front of him, danced with Sif when she complained about this season's skirts and how ready she was to escape to the country for a hunt.

“Foxes?” Thor asked.

“Most likely,” she said. “They still allow us women that at least.”

Thor smiled, considering what introducing Sif and Jane would be like. But though her hands were warm and though she was one of the most amazing people Thor had ever met, his eyes were drawn across the room to where Loki stood, stiff and annoyed next to their mother. When he caught Loki's eyes, Loki's mouth dropped slightly before he abruptly looked away.

“You seem well content with life,” Sif remarked.

“Do I?” Thor asked. “Say, we should invite Loki on this fox hunt.”

“Oh yes, how your brother loves the countryside,” Sif drawled. “All the horses and the servants and the baying dogs—”

“Oh, but he does so love the hunt itself,” Thor said and if Loki could hear him, he would be glared at with icy rage but Stif laughed, shaking her head.

“You will have to allow me to invite the others, so I'll at least have company when your brother takes all your attention.”

“Of course,” Thor said, magnanimous as always. “I would hate for you to feel alone on your own hunt. Invite anyone, invite everyone.”

“Perhaps just our friends,” she said dryly and the song ended. Thor bowed and she curtsied and then Thor was next to Loki, leaning down across his shoulder.

“Do you not see anyone you wish to dance with, brother?”

“No,” Loki said, turning his head. He had found a drink so at least there was something in his hand and with no one watching, Thor lightly pressed his fingers into the small of Loki's back, where he had bit a bruise that morning.

Loki did not shudder, but Thor could feel his silent gasp before he leaned away. “I am certain the right partner is right in front of you.”

“Yes, probably,” Loki said, following him with his eyes.

“The Lady Sif would like to go hunting,” Thor said. “In the countryside, for foxes. We are invited.”

“You mean you are invited and you insisted on bringing me along,” Loki said and Frigga had been distracted, talking to another mother.

“However you like to say it,” Thor agreed mildly. “The fact remains we could spend a week in the country.”

“With your friends.”

“Together,” Thor said and he could see the way Loki tensed before he nodded.

“Perhaps it would not be a monumental waste of my time,” he allowed and Thor went and danced with other women, who smiled and fluttered their eyes at him and he spun them carefully around the dance.

But it was Loki he caught a cab home with, listening to the clop of the horse's shoes on the cobbles, Loki's face illuminated by passing streetlights. Their parents had gone to another concert, and it wad dangerous for them to both be returning home so early in the night.

But that did not matter with Loki's leg pressed up against his, across from each other in the cab and it was starting to snow outside, as they stepped up to the house.

“I am getting out of here someday,” Loki said, turning to face him on the steps, and white flecks in his hair. “However I need to, I will leave.”

“You think I would stay?” Thor asked. “I would burn it to the ground when our parents die first.”

Loki tipped his chin back and they were not even inside yet, Loki a few steps above him. They stood that way for a moment too long, not touching but simply staring as the snow fell, outside the facade of the house that hid their lives.

When Loki turned and entered, Thor let his hand brush his back again, and this time Loki allowed himself the shiver, glancing at Thor over his shoulder and they both knew where they were going. Where they would end up in moments.

Where they might end up later.

“When you go,” Thor whispered into Loki's ear. “I am coming with you.”

“Foolish,” Loki said but he let Thor kiss him anyway.

Thor wondered which one that really made the fool and he pulled the door closed after them.


End file.
